The Un-Christian Concept of Eternal Damnation – Part 2

How the idea of hell developed in early Christianity

Oct 01, 2024

One way to think about the various views of the afterlife that were current in the age of early Christianity is to group them into three categories. First is Annihilationism, the idea that sinners and nonbelievers simply die and cease to exist as their divinely ordained fate. This was the view in the apocalyptic book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible. (Interestingly enough, it is very like today’s science-based view of what happens to everyone at death.) Second is Infernalism—a convenient term for the belief, which arose toward the end of in the apocalyptic age, in the existence of hell as a place of eternal and conscious torment after death. Third is Universalism—the conviction that all souls will ultimately be saved and reunited with God. I’m going to deal with the first two in this post, and, to tip my hand, to save the best—Universalism—for the next.

Each of these ideas can be argued to be present in the New Testament, but there’s no consistent, common view. Reading the gospels, whether or not Jesus believed in eternal damnation is debatable, and many contemporary scholars of early Christianity think he did not. In no place does he speak in any detail about how sinners and unbelievers will face eternal torment after death.

The case for Jesus as infernalist is based on scattered quotations from his teachings and parables. Many critical scholars today note that the words attributed to Jesus were often mistranslated, both in the early renderings of the New Testament from Greek to Latin and in the Renaissance versions in modern languages.

Lost in Translation

One of the quotes often used to prove that Jesus believed in hell, for example, comes in a passage in Matthew (Chapter 18) where he famously warns (in the King James translation): “And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.”

But the phrase “hell fire,” in the original Greek, actually says “fiery Gehenna” in a literal translation, and Gehenna referred to an actual place on earth—usually referred to as the Valley of Hinnom, now a national park southeast of the “Old City” in Jerusalem. Gehenna had a fearsome past. It was said to be the place where some early Israelites, and others before them, sacrificed their children to a pagan god. The Jewish prophets characterized it as a desolate place where the bodies of wicked Israelites would be thrown, unburied, to be burned or eaten by vermin. For many years, Christian scholars and writers had concluded that Gehenna must have been a mass burial ground where funerary fires burned constantly. But archaeologists have never found evidence to support the idea. So, it may well be that Jesus was using a familiar reference to suggest a painful and ignoble death.

The Valley of Hinnom in modern times:

Photo by Michal Levinsky - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Another example of the ways that faulty translation affected the church’s evolving understanding of the afterlife is the Greek word αἰώνῐος (aionios), which was rendered as “eternal” in the first translations of the New Testament from Greek to Latin. The basic definition of the word, however is “a long period of time, without reference to beginning or end,” and the secondary meaning is “ a segment of time as a particular unit of history,” according to the current and comprehensive A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature.

“In the Greek Bible,” notes theological historian Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, “aionios has a wide range of meanings, but does not denote absolute eternity.” Thus, biblical references to “eternal punishment” and “everlasting fire” may be more hyperbolic than dispositive.

If you read all the quotations of Jesus, it seems that he may simply have been warning about death and annihilation on Judgement Day rather than any kind of eternal torment in hell, as it came to be understood. (And, as I will explain in my next post, there’s a good case to be made that Jesus’s overall teachings were, in fact, universalistic.)

It’s also worth noting that many modern scholars are wary of drawing conclusions from the exact words attributed to Jesus in the New Testament (even when they are translated correctly). We know that his teachings were transmitted orally, perhaps for decades, before the gospels were composed. And many scholars believe some of the sayings were likely altered—or added—decades later by the writers and editors of the gospels, and reflect later views.

Making the Case for Infernalism

But infernalism became a widely held belief among early Christians, and was endorsed by many of the early church fathers. Tertullian of Carthage (c.160 – c.220, who I’ve written about in an earlier post regarding his denunciation of Marcionism), was one of the earliest Christian writers to articulate the idea of an eternal hell.

Tertullian not only enthusiastically endorsed the idea of eternal torment, but looked forward to personally enjoying, in his own afterlife, the schadenfreude of seeing sinners suffer in hell while he enjoyed the bliss of heaven: “Which sight gives me joy? Which rouses me to exultation? As I see so many illustrious monarchs...groaning now in the lowest darkness... Philosophers...as fire consumes them! Poets trembling before the judgment-seat of...Christ.”

The doctrine of eternal damnation was formalized by Augustine of Hippo (aka St. Augustine, c. 354 – c. 430), along with much else in orthodox theology. Augustine is considered the greatest theologian of Christian antiquity. He was a forceful, compelling writer, and his thinking was hugely influential. In The City of God, he said of the Day of Judgement: “In that day true and full happiness shall be the lot of none but the good, while deserved and supreme misery shall be the portion of the wicked, and of them only.” Hell was a real place, Augustine taught, and torment lasted forever, and that was that.

Augustine’s full-throated endorsement of infernalism carried real weight, and helped ensure its place in the mainstream of Christian theology. The doctrine of eternal damnation was elaborated on, refined, and codified in the Middle Ages, and remains the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church today. The Protestant Reformation did away with many of the dogmas of Catholicism, but they were all in with eternal torment in hell. One reason might be that some of the leading reformers—notably John Calvin and Martin Luther—had been deeply influenced by Augustine.

Coming attractions:

In my next post, I’ll explore the concept of universal salvation—the theological road not taken by the orthodox churches. Belief in universalism was widespread in early Christianity, and the theology that underpins the idea was developed by some of the most learned and eloquent of the early church fathers. It was compelling then, and remains compelling today. In future posts, I plan to write further about my favorite figure in early Christianity, Marcion of Pontus, as well as about the interesting ideas of Origen of Alexandria, early Christian symbolism, and more.

Discovering Early Christianity

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